White House aims to undercut patent trolls

The Obama administration is making another push to combat litigious “patent trolls,” announcing a series of executive actions on Thursday aimed at reducing the number of bad patents granted by the government.

The actions direct the Patent and Trademark Office to work with the private sector on making it easier to figure out if a patent application is truly novel. The PTO will also offer patent examiners more technical training in “fast-changing technological fields” and appoint a full-time official to expand pro bono assistance programs for inventors who lack legal representation.

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Critics say patent trolls amass vague or low-quality patents and use them to sue or extract licensing fees from companies, putting a strain on businesses and the larger economy. President Barack Obama stressed the need for patent litigation reform in his State of the Union address last month.

“Overall the goal of these actions is clear: to encourage innovation, not litigation,” Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said at a White House event introducing the patent actions on Thursday. “Americans want to focus our time and resources on growth and hiring, not wasting money in our courtrooms.”

The announcement is part of Obama’s campaign to take unilateral executive action on key policy issues in the face of congressional gridlock. But both Pritzker and National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling echoed Obama’s call for lawmakers to pass further patent litigation reforms.

“These should not be things we are incapable of working together on and finding compromise,” Sperling said at the White House event. “We’re not here to negotiate where that sweet spot for compromise is, but there is one, and this is a place where people of good faith should be able to find one.”

Acting PTO chief Michelle Lee was due to convene a roundtable Thursday with patent reform advocates and opponents to discuss legislative action. The House passed a patent-litigation reform measure known as the Innovation Act in December, but momentum has slowed in the Senate, where the Judiciary Committee has been considering legislation for months. Critics including universities say some of the proposed reforms would go too far and weaken inventors’ legitimate patent rights.

Google, which has championed patent reform, welcomed the administration’s effort to improve the databases patent examiners use to determine whether applications are original.

“We look forward to working with the Administration and Congress to enact bipartisan reforms that improve patent quality and stop litigation abuses,” a company spokesman said.

The White House actions also earned applause from Microsoft and trade groups like the Association for Competitive Technology, both of which have been critical of some patent-related provisions under consideration in Congress — such as expanding a review program for existing patents.

“Microsoft, for one, is ready to partner with others to ensure the PTO is equipped to perform its delicate and increasingly technologically complex role,” said Horacio Gutierrez, a Microsoft deputy general counsel, wrote in a blog post.

Many of Thursday’s White House actions build on a series of initiatives and legislative recommendations the administration announced last June.